Good morning. Let’s make a bet – if, over the next five-ish minutes of reading this newsletter you learn at least three new things, you have to drop your unique referral link (found at the bottom of this email) in your most popular group chat.

If you don’t learn at least three new things, please apply to be our leader and write this newsletter (seriously). Our previous managing editor will be in the corner sobbing uncontrollably for at least a few weeks.

To recap, here are the outcomes:

• You and your friends are smarter – and you get free prizes from us for all the people you refer.
• We undergo a leadership change because our managing editor can’t get out of bed.

Which one is it going to be?!

🚀⏰ Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news should be about a 4.93-minute read.

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“The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.”

–Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948)

Congress returned to Washington yesterday to resume negotiations over a package of bills aimed at avoiding a government shutdown. Which, if no agreement is reached, would go into effect this weekend.

🏛️ Some quick background: In May, the Biden administration and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) agreed to limit the US government’s discretionary spending to $1.59 trillion in 2024, as part of a wider deal to end a standoff over the federal debt ceiling.

But in recent months, some House Republicans have rejected this figure and proposed a separate budget that’s $120 billion lower, with the cuts spread across agencies outside of defense, veterans affairs, and disaster relief.

Leaders from each chamber of Congress are currently working on separate proposals that would delay the budget-approval process and temporarily avoid a government shutdown.

• In the House: Speaker Kevin McCarthy is hoping to pass a package containing 4 of the federal government’s 12 annual spending bills, followed by a stopgap measure granting more time to pass the other spending bills.
• In the Senate: Democrat and Republican leaders are moving forward with a stopgap proposal to fund the government for the next 45 days, though any such bill would require unanimous agreement in the chamber to move fast enough to avoid a shutdown.

💥 The potential impact: If Congress fails to reach an agreement by midnight on Saturday, hundreds of thousands of federal employees would be furloughed without pay. Workers deemed “essential” – including all 2 million US military personnel – would be required to remain on the job, but without pay.

The US government would also have to suspend a wide range of services, including economic data releases, nutrition benefits, school aid, scientific grants, small-business loans, and most civil prosecutions.

📊 Flash poll (fill in the blank): In my opinion, the impending US government shutdown represents a ___ problem for our country.

Very serious

Somewhat serious

Not too serious

Not at all serious

Unsure/other

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🇵🇱🪖 Poland received a $2 billion loan from the US government to modernize its defense capabilities. The State Department says the interest-carrying loan will be used to purchase high-tech US military equipment for Poland, which has given away most of its old Soviet-based weapons and vehicles to its neighbor, Ukraine. The Polish government is planning to spend 4.0% of its GDP on defense this year, which would represent the highest figure among all NATO nations (slightly ahead of the US, at 3.5%).

🇪🇸⚖️ Shakira was charged with tax evasion in Spain for a second time. Prosecutors are accusing the pop singer of defrauding the Spanish government of $7.1 million in tax revenue by failing to declare a range of payments on her 2018 income statement, including advances for her El Dorado World Tour. Shakira is scheduled to appear in court for her first tax evasion case in late November, where she’ll face charges for allegedly failing to pay $15.1 million in Spanish taxes from 2012 to 2014.

🇦🇶 Antarctic ice sheets reached their lowest maximum level since records began in 1979. Scientists at the National Snow and Ice Data Center say the historically low amount of ice recorded in Antarctica this month is due to a combination of ocean heat, wind patterns, and the ongoing El Niño warming event. Antarctica’s ice, which typically reaches maximum coverage in mid-to-late September, covered 6.6 million square miles two weeks ago, breaking the previous record-low set in 1986.

Later today, NASA astronaut Frank Rubio is scheduled to return from the International Space Station and set foot on planet Earth for the first time in 371 days – a record for the longest time an American has ever spent in space.

But this record achievement was purely accidental – much like when Isaac Newton discovered gravity.

Rubio, along with two Russians, was launched into space by a Russian spacecraft in Kazakhstan last September for a six-month tour on the ISS.

But, like the best-laid plans of mice and men, that all changed when a coolant leak was discovered in the Russian spacecraft – which was also supposed to transport the astronauts home. A different spacecraft was sent to the space station, forcing a delay in the return trip.

🌌🤔 Zoom out: What actually happens to the human body in space?... Similar to “sooo – what are we?”, this is a very loaded question.

Human bodies have become accustomed to gravity over the years, so the absence of it has an effect on almost every bodily function. But, in the grand scheme of things, we really don’t know much about how long periods in low-gravity affect humans.

• The world record for the longest spaceflight is (only) 437 days, or a little over a year. For context, the trip to Mars takes ~7 months, so traveling there and back would almost exactly match the time in space of the human who’s been in space the longest.

The Tennis Channel and the Professional Pickleball Association, which is in the process of merging with Major League Pickleball, announced a new media partnership yesterday.

As part of the agreement:

• The Tennis Channel will produce all PPA Tour events and have the rights to broadcast a vast majority of them.
• The pair will also create “pickleballtv,” a 24/7 standalone channel featuring free matches, as well as entertainment surrounding the sport.

🏓 Driving the deal… Pickleball has been the fastest-growing sport in the US for three straight years, growing an average of ~158% per year. In 2022, ~9 million Americans played pickleball.

And the tie-up between the two sports also makes sense, much like the recent T-Swift + NFL collab that broke the internet. The vast majority of professional pickleballers come from a tennis background, per CNBC, and many current and former tennis players have invested in pro pickleball, including Naomi Osaka, James Blake, Kim Clijsters, Sam Querrey, Nick Kyrgios, and Lindsay Davenport.

• Pickleball, with its faster-pace, could also serve as a funnel to attract new fans to both sports. During Major League Pickleball professional matches, the ball is in action about 40% of the time, compared with 16% at professional tennis matches.

It’s not so easy – and online news (not The DONUT, of course) with ad-driven algorithms are to thank for that... because biased news is far more profitable! 

This affects what events are covered, as well as how they’re framed, making it hard to form a well-rounded view.

Enter: Ground News. This app offers clarity through cooperative, civil debate and holding media accountable. Every day they process nearly 60,000 articles from different outlets, merging the same event into a single story that gives multiple perspectives, and sheds the bias🙌.

Make up your own mind today with Ground News.

💬 Quoted… “Warren Buffett says you find out who is swimming naked when the tide goes out. [Interest rates increasing from 5% to 7%] will be the tide going out.”

In an interview with the Times of India this week, JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon said he’s currently warning his clients to prepare for a “worst case” scenario in which the US Federal Reserve keeps raising interest rates to 7% in the near future (for reference: the Fed’s current target range is 5.25%-5.5%).

• Dimon’s comments contrast with the consensus view in US financial markets, where traders are predicting the Fed won’t hike rates above a peak of 5.75%.

💼 Stat of the Day: 94% = the percentage of all S&P 100 new hires who were people of color between 2020 and 2021; that’s per a new Bloomberg analysis of the 88 S&P 100 companies for which such data is available.

🤔 Did You Know?... The “QWERTY” keyboard was invented as part of the world’s first commercially successful typewriter. And while the layout has been featured in nearly every successful keyboard in history, researchers are still unclear what prompted the initial design.

📰 Worth a Read: Cape Grim: The picturesque island with the cleanest air on Earth → (BBC Travel)

• ☝️ LA resident Derrick Downey Jr. built a fully-furnished micro apartment for a group of adopted wild squirrels who frequent his yard; the two-story building features a fireplace, a large-screen television, and a sofa.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

in partnership with moomoo

• 💰 US markets closed down across the board (S&P: -1.5%; Dow: -1.1%; Nasdaq: -1.6%).
• 🤝 JPMorgan agreed to pay $75 million to settle a lawsuit alleging the bank aided Jeffrey Epstein's sex trafficking; the agreement brings the total amount of Epstein-related settlements to ~$700 million.
• ❌🎯 Target is closing 9 stores across NYC, Seattle, San Francisco, and Portland, citing violence, theft, and organized crime; the bullseye retailer has ~2,000 stores in the US. | 📝 Overall, the effect of theft on retailers’ bottom lines is about the same as it has been for years, per data released Tuesday by the National Retail Federation (more).

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SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• 🏀 NY Liberty forward Brianna Stewart was named the 2023 WNBA MVP yesterday.
• ⚾🙏 Brooks Robinson, a Hall-of-Fame third baseman who won a record 16 straight Gold Gloves for the Baltimore Orioles, passed away at the age of 86.
• 🎭 Writers Guild of America leaders voted to officially end their strike at midnight last night after reaching a tentative agreement on a new contract with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. (Background)

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

in partnership with Top Tree Herbs

• 🦠📅 Roughly 18 million US adults have experienced long Covid, and 8.8 million still have the condition, per a pair of CDC reports published yesterday.
• 🤖 Getty Images launched a new AI-powered image generator that’s trained solely on licensed content owned by the company.
• ☕🎂 Adding used coffee or tea grounds to cake batter enhances its nutritional value and extends the cake’s shelf life, per a peer-reviewed study published in ACS Omega.

*From our partners: 😊 Relax after a long day with kratom tea… Top Tree Herbs’ premium, soothing blends are third-party lab-tested and 100% plant-based. Also effective to get energized without jitters. Visit Top Tree today – all orders over $60 get a free thermos.

MISCELLANEOUS

• ⚖️ The FTC and 17 states filed a lawsuit against Amazon accusing the company of illegally wielding its monopoly power to keep prices artificially high, lock sellers into its platform, and harm its rivals.
• 🗳️ The Supreme Court refused a second request from Alabama Republicans to block lower court rulings invalidating a newly-drawn congressional map that includes only one majority-Black district, instead of two.
• 🏙️ A New York judge ruled yesterday that former President Trump and his family business committed fraud by making misleading valuations on much of his real-estate holdings between 2011 and 2021. (From the Left | From the Center | From the Right)

CLICKBAIT

• 🚫📝 A recruiter debunks the viral ‘white font’ resume trick.

🍾📜 Imagine this... You're strolling along the Mackinac Straits shoreline in Michigan, when you stumble upon a message in a bottle. 

You carefully pop open the cork to find fresh paper inside – on it is a message from one of four descendants of longtime lightkeeper George Keller. It offers you a free stay inside the Great Lakes's tallest lighthouse. 

For four lucky people, however, this will be more than a figment of the imagination. The caretakers of the historic Michigan lighthouse recently launched four real messages in bottles into the Great Lakes, as part of the lighthouse's 113th anniversary celebration.  

• The giveaway features various offers for a free stay for one, two, or even up to five people.

How it works: We provide an incorrect stat. Then you guess whether the actual number is over or under the stated value.

1. ⛰️ 12: Number of states the Appalachian Trail traverses.
2. 🐨 16: Hours per day the average koala bear sleeps.
3. 🍫 18: Pounds of chocolate the average person from Switzerland consumes each year.

(keep scrolling for the answers)

👆 Check out the referral prizes you can get, just for introducing people you know to little old us. 

What to do: Copy your unique link below, then send it to anyone who you think would like the DONUT. Once you hit each milestone, you'll get an email with a link to claim your prize. (Pro tip: there's no need to ration points, you're entitled to a prize at each tier.)

Start referring.👇

1. ⛰️ Under , 14.
2. 🐨 Over, 18-20
3. 🍫 Over, ~22 lbs

**$0 commission trading is available only to U.S. residents trading in the U.S. markets through Moomoo Financial Inc. Other fees may apply. For more information, visit moomoo.com/us/pricing. Terms and Conditions apply; please visit this link for details. Accolades are not indicative of future performance. Investing involves risk and the potential to lose principal. Moomoo is a financial information and trading app offered by Moomoo Technologies Inc. Securities offered through Moomoo Financial Inc., Member FINRA/SIPC.